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There's a Tear in My Cerveza

Posted at 12:57 PM on April 19, 2007 by Jacquie Fuller (1 Comments)

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times published an article about the immigration debate in Nashville, where an "English first" law is being proposed (thanks to my friend, filmmaker Jim Mendiola, for the link.) The article began with a narrative about a music store, Nashville Used Music. In addition to all the standard country music fare--slide guitars and banjos and whatnot--the owner has started selling push-button accordions, a primary instrument in conjunto (aka norteño) music. Though heavily influenced by German polka, you could say conjunto is the Mexican version of country music--sentimental, nostalgic, pastoral, and often embraced by the working class. The article uses the sale of accordions at Nashville Used Music to illustrate the city's changing demographic. In doing so, the article seems to suggest that with a resistance to this influx of immigrants, comes a resistance to the music they bring with them, especially in a city legendary for country music.

What we know today as country and alt-country music wouldn't exist, of course, without the trailblazers of the genre: Roy Acuff, Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family--as well as those who they inspired: Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash. It's one big, family tree. We play a lot of those artists here on 89.3 The Current, too, as so many songwriters and rockers claim classic country as an influence. Where would bands like Wilco or My Morning Jacket be without these artists?

Country music is uniquely American. What a lot of people don't realize, though, is that conjunto music--and its predecessor, the even more sentimental ranchero--has had a presence in the U.S. just as long as early country. Like country, it gained popularity in the early part of the 20th century, sharing sensibilities and roots and a nostalgia for "simpler times." And in the same way that musical genres influence one another today, country and conjunto engaged in a whole lot of cross-pollination. This music has been developing since the time of the Southwestern vaqueros (the predecessor to the cowboy.) In Texas, the pastoral folk music of northern Mexico (ranchero) blended with the Polka music of German immigrants to form the hybrid of conjunto. Country, too, is a hybrid, with its roots largely attributed to the folk music of Appalachia. But Tennessee isn't the only place that country developed--Texas lays claim to a lot of it, too. Much of the country sound was forged in Texas' dance halls, where German, Czech, and Mexican folk sounds merged. The contribution of conjunto and ranchero to the canon of country music is often overlooked.

I'd go so far as to say that conjunto has impacted rock'n'roll. The next time you hear someone rocking out on a Hammond organ, raise your beer to accordion great Augie Meyers of the Texas Tornadoes, who influenced the likes of Elvis Costello. And the next time you're cruising down Lake Street, and you hear that polka-sounding music pumping out of the car next to you at the stoplight ... well, maybe it won't sound so foreign. It is, after all, country music's cousin. And, fortunately for us, music doesn't concern itself with borders.

Comments (1)

You forgot to mention the great accordian/button box player, Flaco Jimenez. I swear that it is a rule that if he guests on a song, someone has to yell, "Bring Me Down Flaco!"

Posted by Frick | April 20, 2007 5:38 PM

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